Night of Despair

Chapter 78: Unexpected Events

After settling on checking whether it could be fixed later, Yu Hong sent Elder Li away and returned to the safe house to start practicing Heavy Leg Skill.

Perhaps it was because he had heard some good news today, or perhaps because he had stayed silent for many days and did not dare to speak. Finally, now he could speak normally in conversation.

As Yu Hong practiced, he felt much more relaxed, and the gathering of Inner Qi in his body was much faster than before.

He had just started practicing for less than ten minutes.

A new stream of Inner Qi quietly gathered and merged into the lower abdomen area.

The eighth strand of Inner Qi was successfully acquired. Next was the ninth strand of Inner Qi. Once it solidified, according to the description of Heavy Leg Skill, he could strengthen his entire body with nine strands of Inner Qi at once and qualify for the second level.

Yu Hong was quite excited about this.

After all, so far, Heavy Leg Skill had only simply increased the power of his lower sweeping kicks and he still had many weaknesses in other areas.

Without protective gear, he probably wouldn’t even beat an ordinary soldier with a gun.

Of course, he had a gun now too, so it would merely be a matter of who was faster and more precise when the time came. Practicing Heavy Leg Skill was utterly useless.

Gulping, after drinking a large cup of water,

Yu Hong put down the cup, feeling his body becoming stronger and his mood much better.

These days, to guard against the Language Person, he had spent all his time strengthening the Large Pyroxene Stones and talisman arrays. He had even strengthened two silver talisman arrays.

Now that the strengthening was complete, everything had returned to its previous state, and he finally felt spirited enough to try some ideas he had before.

Sitting by the door, Yu Hong picked up an Enhanced Red Value Detector.

Pressing one hand on it.

“Enhanced Red Value Detector, direction: detect with higher strength, better sensitivity, and greater durability.”

If it was only strengthened for the Language Person specifically, it wouldn’t be cost-effective, since there would definitely be other hidden troubles with high stealth later on, so it was better to enhance the overall sensitivity of the detector.

This was Yu Hong’s idea.

Soon, black lines flowed out, and a countdown appeared on the detector.

“5 hours 12 minutes.”

“Not bad,” Yu Hong nodded slightly.

He was just about to confirm the enhancement when suddenly a thought flashed through his mind.

He paused, withdrew his hand, stood up, and fetched a sheet of white paper, which was from the supply team that Elder Li had brought.

He had bought a thousand sheets, which would be enough for a long time.

With the paper, Yu Hong swiftly wrote down a title with a charcoal pencil.

“Methods of Combating Attacks from the Language Person.”

Then, he quickly wrote down various pieces of information he had obtained from Li Rushan.

“First: The attacks of the Language Person will fully erupt in the final stage, so it’s necessary to prepare a large amount of luminous stone items to counter the burst.”

“Second: The main form of the Language Person’s attacks is through sound; the specific manifestation is dialogue. The process can be determined as: hear the sound, respond, and the Language Person successfully finds a host.”

“Third: The Language Person needs a corpse as a carrier and will select targets within a certain range around the corpse….”

Soon, all the content was on the paper, densely packed and quite complete.

Yu Hong put down the pen, checked it, and confirmed there were no issues.

Then he stretched out his hand and pressed it on the paper.

“Enhance methods of combating the Language Person. Direction: complete and possibly perfect the methods.”

He felt a bit tense but somewhat hopeful. If this enhancement could be completed, then afterward, facing any dangerous threats, he could…

At that moment.

A flash of black lines.

“Insufficiency in completeness.” The feedback voice of the Black Mark resonated in his ear.

Yu Hong’s heart skipped a beat, released his hand, and looked at the paper, reminiscing about the time he strengthened the Heavy Leg Skill.

Thinking it over, he decided not to specify the direction content, but rather vaguely established a direction for enhancement in his mind.

Thus, he stretched out his hand again and pressed it on the paper.

“Enhance methods of combating the Language Person.”

He didn’t specify the direction this time, but just determined to enhance it and then quietly waited.

Soon, a black line flew out from the black mark on the back of his right hand, flowed through his fingers, and merged into the paper.

“Enhance methods of combating the Language Person?” The Black Mark approved!!

A smile uncontrollably spread across Yu Hong’s face.

He looked at the countdown that appeared on the paper: 3 hours 56 minutes.

Just four hours!

He immediately responded.

“Yes!”

With a hiss.

The countdown on the paper began to run, the numbers decreased by one minute, indicating the start of the timing.

Yu Hong breathed a sigh of relief, carefully picked up the paper, and placed it far from the fireplace, pressing it down with two talisman boards to protect it.

Then, he quickly dressed and went out to gather firewood and dig up wild vegetables.

Four hours was not a long time. By the time Yu Hong returned and sorted the firewood and wild vegetables, the time was almost up.

He excitedly took out the paper in advance, laid it on the wooden table, and quietly waited.

The final minute’s countdown on the paper was still static.

Soon.

He could really determine whether this method could achieve the desired result.

Yu Hong was very hopeful.

Because if such a method proved feasible, it meant that he could fully utilize the Black Mark to collect and integrate various information and methods, obtaining a better and more complete solution to the Black Disaster!

*

*

*

Not far from the post office on the highway.

The sunlight was crisply cold, and a gentle breeze carried the faint scent of fallen leaves.

Five buses were completely charred and quietly parked by the road, silent.

The buses were empty, indeed devoid of any bodies.

But on a high slope by the side of the buses.

Hidden in the weeds, two decomposed male bodies lay quietly.

The two were lying side by side in the bushes, covered with concealed grass capes. With their eyes open and smiles on their faces, they seemed unusually happy and peaceful before death.

The direction both bodies faced was exactly those five buses on the roadway.

Li Rushan and Yu Hong had searched here before, but the area was too large, and they could only give it a cursory glance. It might have been some kind of special power that warped their vision, for they completely missed the disguised appearances of the two people during the search.

Therefore, they had no idea that there were also two bodies, killed by Language Person, hiding nearby and not burned…

***

***

***

Post office stone house.

Li Rushan had gone out to dig vegetables and hadn’t returned yet.

Aisena was left alone in the stone house, sitting at the wooden table and somewhat bored, playing with a wooden figure.

She twisted the wooden figure’s arms here and there, as if it were twirling around.

Creak.

It twirled once.

Creak creak.

Twice.

Creak creak creak.

Thrice…

Suddenly, Aisena’s hands stopped.

She stared blankly at the wooden figure—she hadn’t been turning its arms at all.

But… where did that sound come from?

Thinking this, she lifted her small face and looked out the window.

There was nothing outside.

Aisena quickly jumped off her stool, ran to the bed, threw the luminous stone blanket over herself, grabbed the wooden figure, and huddled on the bed, hiding.

She completely covered her head with the luminous stone blanket, silent with a calm expression, waiting for time to slowly pass.

Ten minutes later.

There was still no abnormality outside.

Aisena didn’t lift the luminous stone blanket and continued to hide.

But just then, she heard footsteps, footsteps approaching from outside the house.

The sound gradually drew near.

With the protection of the luminous stone blanket, Aisena couldn’t hear the Evil Shadow’s sounds, so she knew these sounds were not made by Evil Shadow.

But she still didn’t move, just quietly hiding.

Tap tap tap.

The footsteps approached, reached the doorstep, and stopped.

Then the key was inserted into the lock, turning.

Click.

The door opened.

Then it slammed shut and locked.

“Nana, I’m back!” came her father Li Rushan’s voice with a cheerful tone.

“Daddy!” Aisena flung off the luminous stone blanket, her face lightening up with a smile as she jumped off the bed.

Silence.

But the scene inside the house slowly erased the smile from her face.

There was no father, no sounds in the stone house.

Only light streamed through the gaps of the windows, casting beams illuminating the floating dust.

The house was quiet.

“Daddy?” Aisena tentatively called.

***

***

***

Under the light.

Yu Hong stared intently at the paper that began to blur.

The writing on the white paper blurred momentarily but then quickly sharpened.

Lines of new, smaller, denser, and neater text emerged. @@novelbin@@

The title remained the same.

“The Countermeasures against Language Person Attacks.”

The details below were still those Yu Hong had previously written.

Only now, behind these details were added more meticulous specifics.

Such as the specific Red Value range when Language Person erupted, with a maximum of ten thousand and a minimum of three thousand.

Such as the carrier of Language Person could actually radiate within a three-kilometer range, randomly causing infections, not one kilometer as Old Li said.

Such as the attack process of Language Person was not only about asking and responding, but anyone who made a sound within five seconds after Language Person’s voice would be recognized as meeting the infection criteria.

Yu Hong examined the paper carefully, his expression growing more somber.

Until the end.

There was a blood-red warning at the end of the paper.

“Warning: Language Person, after killing over ten thousand large life forms, will evolve. It gains a second form. This second form will erupt simultaneously once all the carriers within a certain range are destroyed. Its manifestation is…”

At this point, Yu Hong violently recalled the information Li Rushan had shared.

“… This time Yuhe City suffered massively. The sudden outbreak of Language Person’s Evil Shadow caused at least two hundred thousand deaths, turning the entire prefecture-level city Hope City into a dead city within days!”

Two hundred thousand people!!?

“No! Two hundred thousand definitely sparked the second form! But why didn’t the second form appear after we burned the bus??” Just then, Yu Hong instantly realized something was wrong.

In a flash, his scalp tingled, a severe sense of crisis rising in his heart.

“The second form must appear only when all carriers are destroyed, and since we didn’t encounter the second form then that means…”

“The carriers weren’t completely burned!!!”

This is bad!

Yu Hong suddenly stood up, held the paper down with a plank, grabbed the silver talisman array, and rushed out to warn Li Rushan.

Regardless, if Li Rushan died, Yu Hong would be left alone to deal with resource supplies, negotiate with supply teams, and handle external communications!

And Aisena, despite having seen so many deaths, Yu Hong ultimately didn’t wish for a lovely little girl who liked him to die due to their oversight.

Bang.

He shut the wooden door with the back of his hand, donned all the talisman arrays, and carrying the Wolf Fang Club, he rushed towards the post office.